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Bulgaria backs away from treaty opposing violence against women

Bulgaria’s center-right ruling party will not proceed with the ratification of a European treaty aimed at preventing and combating violence against women, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov announced.

“We will adopt the Istanbul Convention only if there is a consensus in Bulgarian society,” Borisov told Bulgarian TV station bTV late Wednesday, citing lack of support from other political parties, including its junior coalition party, the far-right United Patriots.

Borisov’s government submitted the Council of Europe convention — known as the Istanbul Convention — to the national parliament last month. A vote on the treaty was supposed to take place in January but was postponed to allow more time for debate.

Volen Siderov, one of the leaders of the United Patriots, warned that if Borisov’s GERB party continued to seek approval for the treaty, the government coalition could fall apart, prompting an early parliamentary election.

A number of Bulgarian religious groups, including the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, also opposed the treaty, claiming its ratification would lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage in Bulgaria or increase the likelihood of young people identifying as transgender.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev also spoke out against the treaty, Reuters reported, and claimed it did not in fact prevent violence, because the problem still exists in countries that have ratified it.

The Istanbul Convention involves commitments by member countries to implement measures to prevent violence against women, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators. The European Union signed the convention last year, but some EU countries — including the U.K., Ireland, Croatia and Greece — have not yet ratified it.

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glasspix 1

Its a shame that someone is trying to use the worthy cause of the fight to stop violence against women as a veil to introduce the legal infrastructure for the legalisation of same-sex marriage and transgender rights through the back door (no pun intended). Bulgarian churches and the public in general should be commended for being intelligent and vigilant enough to recognise this.

Posted on 2/15/18 | 12:06 PM CET

Scorpio

Dogmas, yet again, are unduly imposing their narrow-mindedness on people.

Posted on 2/15/18 | 12:34 PM CET

Seriously?

Excellent news.

Posted on 2/15/18 | 12:40 PM CET

Scott

So I read the treaty online – and there was NOTHING whatsoever to do with same sex marriage or transgender – zero – nothing … what are they really afraid of ??

Posted on 2/15/18 | 1:38 PM CET

Anne

Why does Bulgaria object when countries as diverse as Serbia, Iceland, Armenia, Norway, Turkey, Ukraine and Switzerland have signed it?

Posted on 2/15/18 | 1:39 PM CET

Bulgarian Patriot

Good decision. The problem with the convention is the hidden and subtle legalization of social gender roles. People are free to identify themselves the way they want, but their self described gender role should be distinguished from the legally established and defined gender roles. If social gender roles are legalized, i can just claim to be a 70 years old women and ask for retirement pension. It’s absurd.

Posted on 2/15/18 | 1:53 PM CET

Orlin

glasspix 1 is absolutely right. The Convention had a hidden agenda. Article 3.6. instates gender as a social construct, not a biological datum. What does this to do with against family violence?
Another hidden aspect of the Convention is, every transgender person receives the status and right of a refugee, which means new waves of Middle-Eastern and African “oppressed” “transgender” would flow into Europe.

Posted on 2/15/18 | 5:14 PM CET

Emanuele

What a joke international treaties like this!

I’d be curious to know who wrote the texts …

And I also wonder if the Counties that have already ratified it, have realized his actual content, beyond the high-sounding and deceptive title.

Anne

Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan seem to be the only European countries which haven’t signed. Ratification can take years. Its not urgent so is left to whenever the legislators get around to it.

Posted on 2/15/18 | 8:21 PM CET

Emanuele

@ Anne

The mere fact that many have signed and then ratified it doesn’t mean that they have really understood it: Italy signed the Convention of Dublin III in June 2013 (minister subscriber for Italy Mr. Alfano), and already in June 2015 complained of his prescritions (complainer minister for Italy: the same Mr. Alfano).

I know, Italy is Italy, but …

Posted on 2/15/18 | 11:28 PM CET

Anne

@Emanuele
Its only a 30 page thing with a set of vague principals.

Individual countries write their own laws and fund programs so how they implement the ideas in the agreement is left up to them.

Such international agreements are really just a statement of intent and the COE simply reports on whether countries are living up to the commitments they have made. At worst they will receive a black mark in some obscure report which no one reads if they fail to do so.

Bulgarian mafia, which owns the country, is trying to divert the social attention from the many social problems, caused by the mafia rule(and a premise of the latter to continue to be on power), to some insignificant issues like the gender, thus representing the West as spreading decadent influence, over the “patriotic” and “patriarchal” Bulgarians.
The well known Russian style manipulations.

Posted on 2/16/18 | 11:42 AM CET

Stefka

Good decision

Posted on 2/16/18 | 1:08 PM CET

Boris Gaganelov

This would be utterly hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.

This bs has nothing to do with “third genders” and everyone with a pint of brain substance in their head knows it – and even if it did – who cares? We have like, at best, 50 trannies from a population of 7 million – this is a non-issue issue.

A nothing burger if you will.

The aim of this is to create a weird, hostile, polarized social scene and create another social divide, shifting the public eye from more important matters to petty squables over complete bs.